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In 2008 A Book of Lives was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, and
won the Scottish Arts Council Sundial Book of the Year.

It includes the
poem Morgan was commissioned to write for the opening of the new Scottish
parliament building in 2004; the sequence 'Planet Wave' which moves
from pre-history to the future much like his earlier Sonnets from
Scotland (Mariscat, 1984) but extends further in both time and space;
'Gorgo and Beau', a dialogue between a cancer cell and a healthy cell;
and 'Love and a Life', a moving sequence of 50 love poems.

"If we want a late style of solemnity or grandeur, we are not
going to get it. Life remains full of adventure. 'My First Octopus'
involves a toilet hole on a Turkish train - hard to imagine many other
Grand Old Poets writing this one. But Morgan has always had the greatest
imaginative reach. In this book he presents a sequence, 'Planet Wave',
commissioned by the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, which spans - this is
classic Morgan territory - from 20 billion BC ('there was a bang and
it was big') through to the destruction of the Twin Towers and beyond.
Here he has a godly voice that has seen all but is not weary, never
cynical. He is not without opinion: 'The shock-waves were a tocsin
for the overweening imperium.' But 9/11 was not the end of history.
We go on, through to AD2300. Morgan retains a belief in the future,
of further, onward, better."